Starship’s Most Fruitful Flight Test
A banana rides to orbit as Starship’s first payload, NASA proclaims its love of beavers, and all the other crazy stuff happening in space this week.
That Sh** Is Bananas – This week, SpaceX’s Starship hit the skies once again for the rocket’s sixth demonstration. In attendance was Musk’s new bestie, President-elect Donald Trump, who got to witness both successes and imperfections of the demo. While Starship’s Super Heavy booster failed to repeat an impressive landing back on the launch tower, as it accomplished during October’s flight test, the upper stage had a much more fruitful journey – literally. The spacecraft carried a toy banana as a zero-g indicator, effectively becoming the first “payload” carried to suborbital heights by Starship. As if that breakthrough wasn’t appeeling enough, the Starship team also reignited a Raptor engine in space for the first time, a key milestone for Starship’s ultimate goal of guiding itself to a ground landing. To commemorate the showing, SpaceX is pre-selling replicas of the banana plushie, which for scale, are 1/247 the size of Starship.
An Inside Job – Already a definitive leader in the space industry, SpaceX is about to get, let’s say, a super heavy boost by the incoming president. With their appointment to a newly created Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are tasked with reducing bureaucracy, cutting regulations, and restructuring federal agencies. Basically, they’ll be taking some bolt cutters to the regulatory shackles Musk believes are holding him and SpaceX back. It’s no secret that SpaceX and the FAA have a contentious relationship, and in this new structure, Musk will wield a lot more power – not only over the FAA but also environmental agencies monitoring Starship testing in Boca Chica. Plus, with Trump’s new appointment at the FCC, Starlink may be just as in luck as Starship. Power trip aside, this could be great news for space exploration and industry progress. Sometimes it takes a fresh perspective to find deficiencies in a system that’s been in place for a long time. Simultaneously, checks and balances are necessary to avoid corporate monopolies and maintain safe practices. Otherwise, anyone or anything that stands in the way of “progress” gets trampled. Speaking of uhm, BOUNDARIES..., the US Senate is currently calling for an investigation of Musk’s secretive chats with Putin, recently revealed by WSJ. Because space deals are one thing – national security threats are another.
This edition of Continuum is brought to you by the Space Resources program at the Colorado School of Mines.
Everything’s Fine Up Here – When concerned social media citizens aren’t nagging the two stars of Disney’s Wicked, they’re talking about the supposedly suspicious weight loss of NASA’s Starliner astronaut, Suni Williams. Williams – whose stay was extended due to Starliner’s notorious helium leaks – addressed concerns around her health in an interview with the New England Sports Network last week. After assuring Bostonians that yes, she did have her Patriots shirt with her on the ISS (phew), Williams confirmed that while “there are a lot of changes that go on” in microgravity, she’s at the same weight that she was when she arrived. So no, it’s not a mysterious illness, certainly not “the O,” just some shifting fluid creating the rumors and nastiness. That said, the concerns around Williams come after a Crew-8 astronaut experienced an undisclosed medical condition after his return from the ISS. What, so NASA gets to keep its astronauts’ medical records a secret, but Musk can’t have a sneaky side-chat with Putin? The HIPAA-crisy!
Honorable Mentions
Our final notable nuggets.
Eager Beaver – The final supermoon of 2024 adorned the night sky last week, known as the “Beaver Moon” after the loveable semiaquatic mammals that fortify their dams in November. Apparently, beavers mean more to NASA than just naming inspiration; the space agency actually lends its fleet of Earth-observation satellites to the Beaver Rewilding Project in Idaho.
Knock On Wood – Earlier this month, Japan launched the world’s first wooden satellite launched into space, by way of a SpaceX rocket. Credited with the original idea is Japanese engineer and former NASA astronaut Takao Doi, who believed in leveraging a renewable and environmentally-friendly material like wood, which would produce less harmful particles upon reentry burns compared to its metal counterparts.
Eyes of Oz – A celestial watch dog has now posted up down under. To expand beyond its Colorado facility, the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Space ISAC) opened its first international operations center in Australia earlier this month, as concerns grow over cyber threats to satellites.
Here Comes the (Sonic) Boom - New research suggests that the sonic booms emanating from Starship launches could cause property damage in surrounding neighborhoods, from cracked plaster to broken windows. Maybe Boca Chica will end up with the equivalent of California’s earthquake codes for Starship proximity.
Started from the Bottom – Texas A&M University just broke ground on a $200 million Space Institute in Houston near NASA's Johnson Space Center. The facility will feature landscape replicas of the Moon and Mars, so students can prepare for a celestial future from the safety of Earth.
The JWST Download
Using data from the JWST and Chandra, astronomers have discovered a black hole that’s growing 40 times faster than we previously thought possible. Found just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, LID-568 challenges our current models of supermassive black hole formation, offering a new glimpse into the early universe. You got to love the JWST, here to make us question everything we thought we knew.
Similarly challenging existing theories, a joint project between Hubble and Webb recently confirmed a lack of planets around Vega, a hot young star approximately 25 light years away from Earth. The discovery echoes conjectures made by Carl Sagan in his 1985 science-fiction book, Contact – and the subsequent movie starring Jodie Foster and pre-Interstellar Matthew McConaughey.
Thankfully, we don’t have to question everything this week. Webb did just help to confirm the existence of an "Einstein zig-zag," a phenomenon where light from a quasar passes through two regions of warped space-time.
This edition of Continuum is supported by the Open Lunar Foundation. Open Lunar's work sets precedents, creates pathways, and builds projects that enable a peaceful, cooperative lunar presence. Learn more about Open Lunar's work by joining their upcoming events.
A Global Space
ESA – Despite a successful inaugural launch in July, Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket may still not be enough to support ESA’s ambitious mission slate. With SpaceX’s growing power, those working in European space policy want to maintain the continent’s self-sufficiency. With this in mind, ESA has awarded a combined €44.22 million ($46.7 million) in funding to four launch vehicle startups: HyImpulse, Isar Aerospace, Orbex, and Rocket Factory Augsburg. The funding follows another supportive move by the agency last month, with ESA proposing an increase in down payments on new contracts in an effort to ease mounting financial pressure faced by European space firms.
China – Advancing steadily towards its 2026 debut, China’s Long March 10 rocket performed well this week during a fairing separation test, conducted by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT). The demonstration involved the rocket shedding its fairing, or protective shell, which it will need to jettison when it ultimately passes through Earth’s atmosphere. China has designed the rocket to carry astronauts to LEO and the Moon, with the first crewed lunar mission penciled in for 2030. When it’s not throwing around its lunar rocket parts, China is sending spacecraft to Tiangong, with the nation’s Tianzhou-8 cargo ship arriving at the space station just last week. The spacecraft delivered 6,000 kg of supplies for Shenzhou 19, a crew of three, including some bricks made of lunar regolith simulant. The astronauts will install the bricks outside the space station to test their durability in high-radiation conditions, as a way to assess whether the soil could be a reliable material to build lunar habitats.
Japan – In addition to its wooden wonder, LignoSat, Japan launched its Kirameki No. 3 satellite into orbit this month, leveraging the country’s flagship H3 rocket. Keeping the mission entirely in-house makes sense, as the craft is categorized as a military defense satellite for Japan. Kirameki No. 3 will reportedly use X-band communication for high-speed, stable data transmission between the country's Ground, Maritime, and Air Self-Defense Forces. The launch – along with a recently inked agreement for shared use of a US military satellite network – signals that Japan is taking its military coordination seriously, possibly in response to rising tension from neighbors Russia and China. The mission marked the third consecutive successful H3 flight after a destructive debut in 2023.
Russia – Japan may have lofted two satellites into space this month, but Russia is clearly playing a numbers game – recently launching over 50 satellites to orbit atop a Soyuz-2.1b rocket. The Soyuz rocket, which took off from Vostochny spaceport in early November, carried two “heliogeophysical” satellites, which will contribute to an Earth-observation constellation focused on studying the planet’s ionosphere. In addition to these two primary spacecraft, the Soyuz rocket carried 53 secondary payloads, including 49 Russian satellites, two Iranian spacecraft, one Russia-China satellite, and one Russia-Zimbabwe satellite.
Scotland – A new plan was approved for Sutherland spaceport, a launch site in northern Scotland that’s been in the works since 2020, despite a billionaire landowner’s best efforts to kill the project due to potential disturbances. With construction back on track, it looks like the power goes to the people, with the local chamber of commerce expecting “new job opportunities and community benefits” for an area that’s faced depopulation and economic hardship.
Australia – Also preparing for a new spaceport is South Australia, with the state’s planning minister recently giving final approvals to Adelaide-based Southern Launch. Situated on the Eyre Peninsula, the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex is roughly 400 kilometers (248 miles) from Koonibba Test Range, where California-based Varda plans to land its orbiting pharmacies. In response to environmental concerns, approvals for the spaceport’s operation came with 59 conditions, including launch caps, noise restrictions, and native vegetation protections.
Artemis Accords – Over the course of the past month, the number of signatories has grown to a total of 47 on the Artemis Accords, the US-led agreement that promotes safe and civil space operations. In late October, Chile signed Accords, as did the Republic of Cyprus. Thailand is expected to be the next to sign the set of principles, which would make it the first nation to join both the US-led and Chinese initiatives, having already signed on with the ILRS in April.
And that’s a wrap on this week in space news! A big thank you to Tess Ryan for writing this edition and for keeping up with the cosmos!